OT:Cancer victims' families blame Bayshore

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One thing that do not seem to realize or have not connected to the

illnesses is that mold also produces benzene.

Cancer victims' families blame Bayshore

Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Sarasota,FL*

By FRANK GLUCK

frank.gluck@...

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20070903/NEWS/709030403

BRADENTON -- Terri Lumsden Jewell, a Bayshore High School graduate,

received the worst possible news after a routine blood test in 1999.

The nasty bruise on her leg was not from a run-in with a car door,

but a symptom of late-stage chronic myelogenous leukemia.

Jewell, 37, a mother of two, died six months later from the rare

form of cancer that strikes one or two people for every 100,000. For

years, her family considered it a horrible but random tragedy.

Now Jewell's sister, Cheryl Jozsa, and 30 other families of alumni

and former employees from the Manatee County high school are not so

sure it was random.

They believe diesel fuel tanks buried on the school grounds may be

the cause of dozens of rare cancers. The cancers have struck young

and seemingly healthy Bayshore alumni.

The group's claims have drawn the attention of state Rep. Bill

Galvano.

Group members are talking about filing a class-action lawsuit to

seek financial damages and get answers to their agonizing medical

mysteries.

They face a huge challenge in proving a link between the school and

the deaths, however.

Diesel fuel tanks buried near the old school building, which closed

in 1998 after the new facility opened just south of it on the same

property, contained cancer-causing chemicals. But a series of tests

showed no dangerous levels of contamination in either the soil or

the ground water before the tanks were removed.

Furthermore, the Florida Department of Health determined in February

that the school, which had documented mold and air quality problems,

posed no cancer risk.

" We haven't been able to find anything in the records that would

indicate a problem, " said Forrest Branscomb, risk manager for the

Manatee school district. " There's no risk. "

Health officials say bona fide " cancer clusters " -- where high

cancer rates appear in specific populations -- are extremely rare.

In most cases, the illnesses are shown to be nothing more than

statistical anomalies, they say.

Still, the Bayshore families are not convinced.

" We have so many alumni dying from rare and aggressive cancers, "

said Jozsa. " In 90 percent of these cases, there's no family history

at all. It's just real scary. "

Suspicion develops and then spreads

Jozsa, herself a 1981 Bayshore graduate, became suspicious in 2003

when she received a call from a friend about another Bayshore

graduate who had developed acute myelogenous leukemia, a rare cancer

that is similar to the one that killed Jozsa's sister.

One of that cancer's risk factors is benzene, which is found in

diesel fuel.

Jozsa heard about the Bayshore diesel tank, then found out about the

benzene-cancer link, and began to wonder if other Bayshore grads had

gotten sick.

She set up a Web site to allow Bayshore alumni to connect and

chronicle the illnesses. So far, more than 300 people have contacted

her, she said.

They have counted 63 cancer cases among alumni and former staff of

the old school. Another 20 report their children had birth defects.

Lana 's husband, Zaharius, died in November from colon cancer

at the age of 27, much younger than most colon cancer patients.

Zaharius , a 1997 Bayshore graduate, was a standout defensive

back on the school's football team and later played for the

University of Arizona.

Since colon cancer is usually attributed to lifestyle factors such

as poor diet and inactivity, believes her husband's death is

suspicious. She wants more environmental testing on the school

grounds.

" There's just a lot of freaky things that have happened, " said

, who lives in Arizona. " We just want someone unbiased to

look into this. "

Liz of Bradenton also wants testing, but she is unsure if

anything will come of it.

Her son, Rick Speed, was 18 when he died in 1997 from Ewing's

sarcoma, a rare bone disease. He attended Bayshore in 1993 and 1994.

" As much as I want answers, I don't know if I'll get them, "

said. " It's just strange -- no one in the family has had cancer and,

boom, he's diagnosed with cancer. And a rare cancer at that. "

Acceptable contamination, or hazards in the soil?

Those convinced the old school is causing the illnesses primarily

point to the two diesel fuel tanks once buried yards from the

building.

In the mid-1990s, the school had a problem with a 10,000-gallon

cylinder buried south of the old high school building. Officials

worried the tank, which was nearly full, was leaking.

" The potential for a major pollution cleanup is great because of the

age and size of this tank, " one 1995 school memo stated.

The tank was not removed for another seven months. Palmetto-based

environmental cleanup firm Enviro-Audit & Compliance then tested the

soil and ground water for contamination.

The company reported diesel contamination of 20 parts per million in

one sample, and 7 parts per million in another. The state's standard

for dangerous contamination is 50 parts per million.

No diesel compounds were found in the ground water, the report

shows. Furthermore, the school drinking water was piped in from the

county.

A follow-up survey in 2001 determined there were no potable water

wells within a quarter-mile of the school.

Workers in 1989 also removed a 350-gallon diesel fuel tank near the

old parking lot. They discovered only trace amounts of diesel-

related chemicals in the surrounding soil.

An environmental report conducted after the removal found no need

for chemical cleanup. School district officials say that proves the

tanks were no threat.

Orlando attorney , who was hired by Jozsa and the other

families to organize the potential class action lawsuit against the

school district, believes those tests prove otherwise.

" There's really no acceptable level of benzene because, over time,

it could lead to (health) problems, " he said.

True clusters are rare and difficult to prove

Jozsa believes that Bayshore contamination killed her sister. For

her, the numbers prove the case.

Take the class of 1980, which Jozsa said had 10 reported cases of

cancer, or about 3.2 percent of its 308 total students.

Whether that is considered high depends on how the numbers are

crunched.

About a half-percent of Florida's population was found to have

cancer in 2005, according to the American Cancer Society.

But the students did not all receive their diagnoses in one given

year. Nor do the numbers include other risk factors, such as poor

lifestyle choices or possible chemical exposure in other locations.

And, the fact is, cancer is actually quite common, said Beverly

Kingsley, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention.

True clusters involve the same illnesses appearing over and over in

a population spending time in a given geographic area, Kingsley said.

" Generally, what epidemiologists like to see before they jump in

with an investigation is one type of cancer, " she said. " That is the

best shot we have of proving something. "

Even then, less than 1 percent of cancer cluster investigations ever

prove an environmental link, she said. The CDC receives roughly 200

reports of suspected clusters every year.

Jozsa is not swayed.

" I find it hard to believe these are all bad lightning strikes, " she

said. " If these are all coincidences, then we should all pool

together and play the lottery. "

Larry , who was on the school board when the old Bayshore

High School building was demolished, said concerns about

contamination are unfounded. He sent his own two children to

Bayshore between 1984 and 1992.

" You could probably go to half the filling stations in Manatee

County, and probably half of them have had a leaking tank, "

said. " You could probably show that the people working there had no

health problems. "

Clusters have been shown in other places, however.

The Florida Department of Health recently concluded that people

living and working in the Tallevast area who drank well water before

2004 face elevated health risks. Those residents and workers have a

low to moderate chance of developing kidney and liver cancer,

leukemia and lymphoma, the health department said.

State Rep. Galvano said he is keeping an open mind.

" It is one of those odd situations when you have people not related

who have a common background geographically who believe there is

some problem, " Galvano said. " I don't want to be an alarmist, but

I'm not ready to dismiss it. "